The present inventin relates to a disk magazine for use with an audio and a video playback device which use disks and, more particularly, to a disk magazine applicable to an automatic disk selection and playback mechanism which is installed in such a playback device.
In a compact disk playback device, for example, a magazine which is loaded with a stack of compact disks is mounted in a body of the playback device so that the disks may be sequentially selected and played back. Because this type of compact disk playback device allows multiple disks to be loaded at a time to sequentially play them back, it frees a person from troublesome operations otherwise needed to take out a disk from the magazine at the end of playback, put another disk in the magazine, and repeat such a procedure for every disk loaded in the magazine.
A prior art disk magazine of the type described is made up of a casing, and trays each being loaded with a compact disk. Each of the trays is rotatably connected at its one corner to one corner of the casing by a pin. The magazine with the trays and disks mounted therein is inserted into a disk playback device through an opening of the latter. When any of the trays is rotated about the pin to a predetermined positon in the playback device, the disk loaded on that tray is moved out of the casing to be played back by the playback device. On completion of playback, the tray is rotated in the opposite direction about the pin until the disk has been received in the magazine again.
However, such a rotatable tray type disk magazine has various problems left unsolved, as enumerated below.
(1) Even though the tray may be moved out of the casing, it still remains physically connected to the casing and does not become independent, or free. Hence, the connection of the tray to the casing is apt to become unstable resulting in, in the worst case, the breakage of the tray.
(2) Usually, a disk is loaded in the tray by holding the tray by one hand and the disk by the other hand and, then, putting the disk on the tray. A drawback with the prior art magazine is that the casing obstructs the handling of the tray, and that because both the casing and the tray have to be held by one hand at the same time, the tray cannot be securely gripped. For these reasons, it is not easy for a person to load a disk in the tray and, therefore, in the magazine.
(3) The casing is open at at least its two sides in order to allow the tray to be rotated as stated earlier. Such open sides of the casing would allow dust and others to easily enter the casing.
(4) Because the tray is simply supported at its one corner by the casing through a pin, the free end of the tray is easily displaceable in the vertical direction, especially when the tray is rotated within the playback device to the outside of the casing. Should the tray be rotated in an inclined position, the surface of the disk would be rubbed during the movement of the disk into the casing.
(5) An extra space great enough to allow the tray to be rotated out of the casing should be provided in the playback device, obstructing the miniaturization of the playback device.